I caught New Line’s Fracture last night — from director Gregory Hoblit (NYPD Blue, Primal Fear, Fallen), who certainly knows his way around the criminal justice system.
The story of a man (Anthony Hopkins) who kills his cheating wife and then locks horns with a hotshot assistant district attorney (Ryan Gosling) while representing himself, the movie is a first-rate chess match with legal thriller trappings. Co-writer Daniel Pyne puts some snap in the dialogue, and Gosling gives a great, engrossing performance as a blithe egotist under fire.
It is what it is, but it’s a very well made genre picture, which Hollywood has a lot of trouble with these days. There’s an especially crackling interrogation scene (above), which elicits strong evocations of The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling’s first encounter. There’s friction everywhere, too — all the main characters are keeping one another at arms’ length, forever measuring their relationships, personal and professional.
Fracture releases wide on April 20. For more information, click here.